LibraryThing arranged to get me an advance reading copy of The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett in exchange for a review (either positive or negative). So, here we go.

The Air We Breathe is another “antique science fiction” novel by Andrea Barrett. I’ve just made up the genre of “antique science fiction,” and as far as I know, Andrea Barrett is its only practitioner. Unlike conventional science fiction, which speculates about scientific advances to come, antique science fiction focuses on the scientific advances of the past. Like Ship Fever and The Voyage of the Narwhal, the other two Barrett novels I have read, The Air We Breathe tells the story of the scientific advances of an earlier age and the impact that had on characters’ lives. In this novel, Barrett lovingly dwells on the advances in chemistry, physics, and archaeology in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. However, because the novel is set in a WWI-era sanatorium, what most impacts the characters lives are the scientific advances that haven’t yet happened.

The rough plot arc of the novel makes me think of Paradise Lost. In the beginning of the novel, you’re introduced to characters who have lost nearly everything, both materially (many are poor immigrants) and socially, being exiled to the living death of forced rest & recuperation. In the first part of the novel, I had to continually remind myself that I wasn’t reading about elderly patients in a nursing home. These are vigorous people in their 20s and 30s who are suddenly forced to do nothing. Slowly, the patients at Tamarack State Sanatorium build an idealistic community organized around a love of learning and teaching each other — their own mini-paradise. Then, as with Adam and Eve, out-of-control passions bring the paradise to a sudden and tragic end.

You don’t want to read this book for its plot. Because most of the characters have to do nothing more than sit and breathe the cool air of the Adirondacks, there’s not a lot of action. You also probably don’t want to read the book to try to find nuanced, realistic characters. For the most part, Barrett’s characters neatly fall into one of three categories: Saintly, calm personalities with diverse backgrounds but united by their love of learning; Obsessive, selfish, and destructive characters; and the narrators who “?lived as if we were already dead, as if we’d died when we were diagnosed and nothing we did after that mattered?”

That said, I loved the book. I loved it because it vividly carried my imagination back to 1916. For a few hours, my mind soaked up that other universe. I felt the dread of being in the tomb-like atmosphere of a sanatorium. I felt hopeful as teaching, the arts, and the sciences woke up the patients at Tamarack State and gave them hope. I felt saddened as the delicate, utopian community shattered on its impact with irrational human passions. And finally my mind can’t stop thinking through this fictional story of 1916 to find what it says about human nature that is still true in 2007.

Especially if you love science, this book will take you on a worthwhile intellectual journey. Worth reading.

I took Alex to the zoo today. We had a great time. I brought my camera and got some cool pictures of animals. It was hard to get good Alex pictures, though, because he stayed in the stroller much of the time.

One fun thing about visiting the zoo near Halloween: For many of the animals, instead of feeding them as normal, they hide their food inside of a pumpkin. So here are some river otters wrestling with a pumpkin to get their meal:

Apparently, they did the same thing with the jaguar, too — stuffed some raw chicken inside of a pumpkin. (Yum! I’ll have to try that for Thanksgiving!) While I was a few minutes late to see the jaguar wrestling with the pumpkin, apparently that little change of routine put the cat into a good mood. She was happy to be near the glass with the rest of us.

Most of the other pictures I took were of animals. If you want to see them, click here:

This playground is a good change of pace from our usual haunts, the University Village playground or the Bryant Elementary playground. For one thing, it has swings. Alex loves swings.

(Yes, you see correctly — in spite of the crisp fall air, Alex wanted to wear his sandals. He’s quite particular about his footwear these days. And as everyone knows, you can wear socks with sandals and blend in around here.)

This playground also has a few thingamabobs with steering wheels. No matter what it is, if it has a steering wheel, Alex loves it.

And even though Alex isn’t in this picture, it’s one of the coolest ones of the day. So here you go. Be sure to check out the other six pictures from the day. Once again, here’s the link:

Yesterday was the memorial service for Ralph Abdo. I had some time at home before I had to put on my suit, and I took the time to grab my camera and walk to the cemetery at the end of our street. I’ve always wanted to take pictures there, and the combination of an unseasonably sunny October day, the splendid Fall foliage, and my general melancholy mood meant I couldn’t resist. I spent about an hour walking around taking pictures in a memento mori frame of mind.

I like this picture the best of the set. My original conception didn’t work out at all — I wanted a dramatic backlit scene, but too much was washed out. But I liked the elements of the picture too much to give up on it, and by playing with different black & white renderings I hit on this otherworldly vision. It perfectly captures how I felt yesterday.

I like the next two pictures because they contain all of the conflicting thoughts in my brain. On the one hand, everything yesterday was so beautiful. How could you not celebrate that? Yet all around are the reminders of death and sadness… and when you stop and think about yesterday’s beauty, what you’re seeing is the color of decay and fading and the onset of winter. But it’s still beautiful.

Cavalry cemetery is an old graveyard. One of the things I valued most my about my walk through it is the perspective I got from visiting families that lived and died over a hundred years ago.

This marker was from a family who had several children who died young — some a few months, some just a couple of years old. It’s a reminder that we live in an unusual era. In entire span of human history, it’s only been in the last hundred years that living a long, full life is the norm… so much so that we take life for granted and death comes as a surprise. But we’re as mortal now as we were a hundred years ago.

Everyone said this at yesterday’s memorial service: Ralph knew how to live life to its fullest. He was always laughing, always had a story, was always planning his next skydiving or windsurfing adventure. He clearly didn’t need a walk through a graveyard to remind himself that his time on Earth was limited, or that life was precious.

It was a cold, wet day — but that didn’t stop Alex from having a great time. He loved the goats & ducks. They also had some hay bales out for the kids to climb on… and when it was time to leave, we had to drag him screaming from them. Clearly cold and wet doesn’t bother him at all!